Succeeding as an entrepreneur takes hard work and persistence because, unfortunately, there is no business-startup fairy who magically bestows success on small businesses and their owners. Most successful entrepreneurs follow comparable patterns and share similar basic characteristics. Hundreds of online articles and published books claim to know the secret of success in entrepreneurship, but for the most part, they boil down to the same major points. Passion, perseverance, discipline, hard work, and a positive attitude tend to set successful entrepreneurs apart. So in this article ill just resume the 13 steps to becoming a successful entrepreneur that you need to know. Steps to becoming a successful entrepreneur Be Passionate Passion is passing the good energy from words to actions. When you’re passionate about something, or someone, you react from your soul not only your mind. Half engagement in an entrepreneurial initiative will affect your drive to succeed. Perseverance is the one thing that's guaranteed to move anything over time, whether it's a person, a job, or an entire company. Elon Musk failed at his efforts until late 2008 but he never gave up. Make a Business plan Popular studies report that 90% of startups fail before their first year of implementation and some of the reasons are that, They have weak business models Poor planning A successful business plan does not have to be a book. A 10-page plan is digestible yet long enough to include everything you need to start. Hire Great Partners to build your “A” team I’ll admit that this one might be a little bit obvious. Successful entrepreneurs aren’t successful within a vacuum. We all have a great team and support network behind us When I recommend hiring great partners, I don’t just mean someone who can do the job you’re hiring them for. You should seek partners who have great character and whom you like and respect. You and your partners will be working long hours together and making stressful decisions. If you don’t respect your partner(s), your team won’t last long. Fill your team with people who have great character and you’re well on your way to success. When choosing your partners and team members, always remember that you can teach skills, but you can’t teach character. Trust yourself! Confidence and a good elevator speech can take any pitch to the next level. If you don’t believe in yourself, who will? Being a successful entrepreneur means that you’ve learned to listen to your intuition and rely on your wisdom when making decisions. Your ability to trust and believe in yourself will show your confidence. People are more likely to follow and trust confident leaders. Trusting in your own skills will also take some of the pain of uncertainty out of being an entrepreneur. When you feel uncertain, remember how much experience and knowledge you have. Most entrepreneurs start their business after years of experience working for someone else. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help when you need it or turning to a mentor for advice, but you also have to learn to trust yourself and your own judgement without input from others. Learn to trust yourself and you’re already starting down the path of entrepreneurial success. You need to act fast Successful entrepreneurs act. Talking only delay actions It’s easy to get wrapped up in planning, considering potential failures, discussing funding, and talking in meetings with board members. If all you do is talk, you’ll get nothing done. At some point, you have to halt the talking and make something happen. Take Incremental Steps There is nothing like, leaving from step a to z. You have to take baby steps The problem with a big goal or step is that it is daunting enough so that it can paralyze you Making you unable to move forward So what you have to do is reduce those big steps. Break them down into smaller steps, that you can manage yourself. You should take risks There is no safe way in business or entrepreneurship. If you don't take risks you cant grow and if you don't grow you are doomed to fail You should take risks but not naively. As an entrepreneur, you should always make your homework on any given business idea or opportunity Then if you feel there is a chance of success then you should take the risk Build a good reputation You need to make your brand known and in a good way. That is you will have to provide really exceptional services or products. For that you need your customers to trust you and the only way to achieve that is by providing good services A reputation alone can be negative so you should make sure to take insights from your customers on what you are doing and improve your services accordingly Learn how to self promote Many people dont wan to self promote but successful entrepreneur self promote in other to become successful. Because if you dont promote your business who will do it for you? There are ways to self promote your business without making it feel like an egoistical self promotion Schedule your activities and stick to your calendar This might seem easy to do but it isn't. The thing is most people thing setting up a schedule is putting themselves in a prison or something But it is far from that, Setting a schedule helps you to avoid procrastinating on what you are suppose to do when you are suppose to do them Having a calendar that shows all your activities enables you to make the different steps of your plan in time. Like it is said “if you give yourself a year to learn a chapter you will take exactly one year to read that one chapter the same as if you give yourself a month to do it.” You have to be curious and ask questions If you want to become a successful entrepreneur your interest for more knowledge should be high enough for you to ask questions when you dont know something. Curiosity can be driven by passion if you are offering a service in your company but you are never interested on how the external world is doing you will become outdated really faast Asking questions is a more efficient method to ask advices to mentors and everyone that might have knowledge in your fields Train your creativity Being an entrepreneur is being creative. As an entrepreneur you should be seeking out for neww ideas always. And for you to be creative you need to be inspired For you to be a successful entrepreneur you need to take time to be inspired It can come from a walk inn the park, a museum visit, a movie … You have to always be seeking out for new ideas Build a wide connection network To become a succesful entrepreneur you need to build a very broad sclae of connections That is, you need to know a lot of people be it you customers, your patners, mentors or anyone who can be of positive help to your business The greater the network you have the faster you can grow and there is a high chance if you have a high connection of findin in new customers and new patners Meet onyone you come into contact with and be firendly , have a chat with them You never know what can come out of that conversation Conclusion As a current Entrepreneur or a futur entrepreneur, it takes you just theswe step to start seeing the other side of the bridge. You should be passionated, disciplined, engaged and focused. There are tons of books you should also read. An example of a book that can guide you through your entrepreneurial journey is: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses is a book by Eric Ries describing his proposed lean startup strategy for startup companies. He developed the idea for the lean startup from his experiences as a startup advisor, employee, and founder. Get the book here